


Manic

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [78]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Mental Illness, Reckless Behavior, Stanford Era, Unhealthy Coping, at all, not a good model for treating mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7564861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s actually the mania that scares Jess more than anything.</p><p>Three pieces exploring Sam's bipolar disorder, from before meeting Jess, while knowing her, and after her death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece from Tumblr.
> 
> Warnings: mental illness (bipolar disorder). While Sam temporarily gets help, it doesn't last. Canonical character death.

Sam doesn’t understand why people have such trouble getting things done.

Maybe it’s his lifestyle. After all, he was raised different, and while he’d have given a lot to be raised like these kids and he obviously thinks their parents did the right thing, John Winchester would have undoubtedly called them coddled. They maybe just don’t have the work ethic to keep up with Sam.

He doesn’t understand why they’re whining about work not being done when he’s been done for days, finished practically as soon as it came out, easy as pie. He’s not sure why they’re whining about this class or that, because it’s just college. Of course he can handle it. He can take on anything with just a little bit of effort.

He picks up a second part-time job on top of the one he already has and his full class load. It seems manageable.

And that goes on for a while. People keep giving him these looks, but Sam ignores him. They’re probably just envious. It takes a strong work ethic, a refusal to quit, but it’s possible. They could learn too.

And then one day, he wakes up and things are very, very different.

Everything he just did feels ludicrous. An extra job is unmanageable when he doesn’t even think he can handle his first one. His school work, once so well managed, falls behind. People are still looking at him weird, now, but it’s an entirely different type of look. When he manages to see it, that is. Some days, getting out of bed is hard.

College is hard on people, he rationalizes. A lot of college kids go through bad patches. He just needs to get through it. It’ll just run its course.

Or not, he thinks on the worst days. Maybe this will never change. Maybe he’ll always be like this, never get any better. Maybe there’s nothing left to him.

He comes back to eventually, going back to class and work–he lost one of the jobs, but he can deal with that. He turns in assignments and studies to catch up. It’s a slow pace, but it’s working.

And then it’s like he’s hit by lightning once more, inspiration and energy filling every pore of his body. He write like his hand’s on fire, he studies to all hours of the night because he can sleep when he’s dead. He doubles his work hours when the opportunity arises.

When teachers turn back the assignments with passing but not excellent grades, with notes of confusion and comments about the lack of clarity in Sam’s thoughts, Sam sets them aside. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Sam knows what he’s doing. He works hard. He gets things done, and he does them well.

Sam doesn’t truly recognize a pattern or, if he does, he keeps it far from his conscious thoughts. The ups, the downs, they keep coming. He comes to fear the downs, but, at the end of the day, he lives for the highs. Lives for the boost, the knowledge that he can manage to take care of anything, that the world is at his fingertips.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s actually the mania that scares Jess more than anything. Not that the depression doesn’t worry her, of course, but it’s not something outside the norm for college kids to be a little depressed sometimes. It’s worrying, sure. But not worrying, not the way the mania can be.

Sam can’t tell the difference, not before the therapy. To him, the mania is amazing. Fucking great, really. A natural high to keep him going, propel him through the impossible. He writes papers and cleans the entire apartment and has time–and ample energy–for Jess. Nothing could be wrong with that.

Except Jess notices what he doesn’t, and that’s how his speech gets fast, his eyes not focusing on one thing too long, how his mind jumps around. How he suddenly believes he can do anything, like there’s thirty-five hours in the day to work with or something. How he’ll push himself and push himself and push himself, past the rate of regular human endurance, because he believes it’s impossible for him to fail.

Which leaves his exhausted, ragged, sick, and rather stunned when he comes down.

He wouldn’t have gotten help if not for Jess, he knows himself. Knows he believes help is a weakness, thanks to the Winchester way. But Jess changes things. So Sam goes.

There’s medication for this. There’s trial and error on dosages, trying to make it work for him. Perhaps more importantly, there’s therapy and learning to recognize the signs and take care of himself. There’s learning to accept that this is a part of him, and one he has to learn to cope with.

Jess dies. School ends, therapy along with it. He doesn’t breathe a word to Dean, because he knows the Winchester way. Anyone different is to be ostracized. Anyone who can’t will themselves better can’t hack it. If you have a problem too big for some stitches and a few big gulps of alcohol to fix, than you’re a waste of time and space.

John Winchester wouldn’t have a mentally ill son. Dean Winchester wouldn’t have a mentally ill brother. Sam doesn’t exists only as the little soldier under Dean’s command. He doesn’t have a personality or problems under that.

The mania hits him hard. He’s been depressed for a while, although it’s hard to tell if that’s his situation, coping with the loss of Jess and school, or his bipolar disorder. But then the mania hits, and he’s assured he’s capable of anything, and tries to run into a burning building, so confident he’s capable of taking out this yellow-eyed demon, here and now.

Dean grabs him back, stops him, wants to know what the fuck is wrong with Sam, and as soon as Sam has a moment to himself, he breaks down and laughs and laughs and laughs.

If only Dean knew.

Jess used to help him watch his moods, used to help him with this, but she’s gone now, and Sam has to take care of this on his own. He realizes, distantly, that this isn’t how he should be feeling. He’s not sure how to fight it completely alone, no medication, no therapist, no Jess, but he supposes he’ll have to learn.

Managing it alone, after all, has become his only option.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam knows he’s messed up. He knows this is mania, that Jess would have stopped him by now and tried to bring him back, set up an appointment with his therapist. He knows it’s unchecked, rampant mania, the variety that gets people like him killed because they genuinely don’t understand why they can’t do everything.

Sam understands. He understands that this will kill him if he doesn’t watch it. He also knows he doesn’t have a therapist, a girlfriend, or his mess anymore. All he has is a brother who can never know, because bipolar disorder isn’t something Winchesters get. Dean thinks he’s enough of a freak already.

So he chases monsters too big to handle because he doesn’t think he can fail. He talks so rapidly Dean looks at him funny, ideas spinning out in his brain over and over, crashing into each other as new ones appear. He’s elated, on top of the world, absolutely convinced their lives are manageable, and that should probably be the biggest indicator of all. Nothing about their lives should ever seem good.

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Dean asks one night. Sam’s cut to hell, claws dragging across his skin. He got too close. Too confident.

He thought he had better control than this.

“Misjudged it,” he grunts, because Dean doesn’t think all that much about his abilities as a hunter anyways and Sam’s sure Dean’ll believe it without too much hesitation.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean grunts. “Just be more fucking careful next time.”

Sam nods, glad the subject is dropping. Instead he tries to calm himself down, analyze his own life, his own signs of mania. Find them. Root them out.

He’ll run straight at the biggest monster he can find armed with a butter knife, he knows he will. Jess always says it was the scariest, seeing him take risks he couldn’t possibly succeed at, that no one could.

Going to Dean’s not an option. It just isn’t. Can’t be. Dean can’t know, because Sam _knows_ how Winchesters feel about people who aren’t in tip-top shape, who can’t pull their weight and get the job done.

So he’s left with himself, the memories of what his therapist told him, and his dead girlfriend’s voice in his head.

_You talk too fast, like that. Like your brain is leaking out your mouth or something. And I just…this look in your eyes. It scares me. Not for me. For you. Scared of what you’ll do to yourself, convinced you can and everything’ll be just fine._

All external signs, not particularly helpful, meant for someone else to recognize them. But they can at least help.

Sam accidentally hits one of the massive cuts on his side when he rolls in the bed. It has to help, because he needs help. He needs to recognize when he’s too far gone so he can pull himself back, because otherwise, he’ll have a lot more nights like tonight. And that’s if he’s lucky.


End file.
